We All Scream:
The Fall of the Gifford’s Ice Cream empire

Author: Andrew Gifford

Paperback: 296 pages

ISBN-13: 978-1939650795

Cover Design: Douglas Luman

About the Book

For more than 70 years, Gifford’s Ice Cream and Candy Company was associated with nothing but pleasure for native Washingtonians and visitors to the nation’s capital. Few knew the dark truth… Behind the iconic business’s happy facade lay elaborate schemes, a crushing bankruptcy, two million dollars of missing cash, and a tragic suicide. As the last Gifford heir unfolds his story with remarkable immediacy and candor, he reveals the byzantine betrayals and intrigue rooted in the company from its modest beginnings—dark influences that would ultimately destroy the legendary Gifford business and its troubled founding family.

About the author

Born and raised in Washington, D.C., Andrew Gifford is the founder and director of the Santa Fe Writers Project, an indie press dedicated to craft writing. He is the grandson of the founder of Gifford’s Ice Cream.

Praise for We All Scream

“A Southern Gothic for the DC area. Loved it.”

— Vanity Fair

“What begins as a behind-the-scenes scoop on the implosion of a beloved ice cream dynasty transforms into a harrowing tale of self discovery. Gifford writes with a scathing honesty that spares no one – himself least of all. Bittersweet and brilliantly wrought.”

— Nevin Martell
Food writer and author of Freak Show Without a Tent.

“We All Scream is an unflinching tell-all about how what one sees, and even tastes, is not always reality.”

— Atticus Review

“Despite the sweetness of this family’s product, Gifford survived one of the most brutal and heartbreaking childhoods ever to be committed to the page. His ability to translate such sad memories into fine art is a mark of his resilience and testament to the strength of the human spirit..”

— Cathy Alter, author of Crush

“An embattled and fought-over ice cream empire gone bust, three generations of a deeply disturbed and troubled family, missing people and millions of dollars gone, and myriad unsolved mysteries. Andrew Gifford’s life is a kind of living ‘potboiler’ of a book, a riveting read. Gifford is a very gifted writer. I was mesmerized. Very highly recommended.”

— Tim Bazzett, author of Booklover

“The story Gifford tells is so much more than of the demise of an American ice cream empire. With its twists and mysteries, some unsolved to the end, it’s a riveting ride.”